The present invention relates to a system for the automated conversion of light signals that represent events or messages into audio that describes or indicates an occurrence of those events or messages.
A vast assortment of devices use light to alert people to the occurrence of an event or to display a message. For example, computers have a light that indicates whether the hard drive is active, telephones may use lights to indicate which line is active, telephones may use a LCD display to indicate the time spent on a call, telephones may display the telephone number or other information about the person on the other end of the line. Other electronic devices use lights, including LCD or LED panels to display a variety of error messages, and computer monitors display text among other graphics.
Such devices are, by design, intended to be used by the sighted population and are difficult, if not impossible for the visually impaired to use as intended. Some of those devices may be individually modified to alert a visually impaired person to the occurrence of an event by an audio message. Unfortunately, such devices are typically expensive and designing devices usable by a limited number of the visually impaired is prohibitively expensive.
What is desired, therefore, is a system for automatically converting light signals that indicate an event or message into an audio signal so that a visually impaired person may be better able to recognize the occurrence of the event or to receive the message.